Alaric’s voice continues behind me, and I’m not actively listening—the officer’s courtesy, the habit of not eavesdropping on operational calls that aren’t yours—until a sentence catches.
“Call Commander Tobias to check it. I’m off today.”
My eyes widen.
I stop.
My hand freezes on the drawer’s bronze handle, my body going still with the specific, alert immobility of a woman who has just heard something that contradicts every expectation her professional experience has built.
He said he’s off today.
Alaric Venezuela just told someone he’s off today.
Alaric Venezuela, who ran a metropolitan investigative division. Alaric Venezuela, who built his career on being the person who answers the call, who shows up, who drops everything because the work is more important than whatever “everything” was. Alaric Venezuela, who coordinated a station fire and a crime scene and a federal response while his Omega was unconscious in a hospital bed, because the work had to be done and someone had to do it and that someone was always, always him.
He said he’s off.
I turn slowly.
The motion carrying the cautious, is-this-really-happening rotation of a woman who needs visual confirmation of what her ears just reported.
The voice on the other end of the phone is audible at this distance—not the words, but the tone. Insistent. The particular, escalating cadence of someone who has been told no and is attempting to negotiate the no into a yes. The kind of push-back that I recognize because I’ve been on both ends of it—the officer being asked to come in and the supervisor asking.
Alaric’s expression doesn’t change.
“I have more important commitments,” he says.
The sentence is delivered with the level, unhurried authority of a man who is not debating. Not negotiating. Informing. The words carrying the same weight as a filed report or a signed order—administrative, final, not subject to appeal.
“Commander Tobias is more than capable of handling the task. That’s why we have a chain of command.”
The voice on the phone pushes again.
Alaric’s jaw tightens.
Not a lot. The micro-expression of a man whose patience is calibrated to professional standards and is being tested.
“Don’t call me again,” he says.
And hangs up.
The motion is simple. Thumb on the screen. Call ended. No lingering. No second-guessing. No checking the phone again to see if they’ve texted or called back or left a voicemail that might reopen the door he just closed.
He slides the phone into his pocket.
Looks at me.
And the professional expression—the clipped voice, the tightened jaw, the investigator’s authority—dissolves. Replaced by the warmth that Alaric keeps on the other side of the professional layer. The burnt vanilla smoothing. The cardamom returning. The dark eyes softening to the focused, attentive regard of a man who has just eliminated a competing demand on his time and is giving the full, undivided weight of his attention to the person he eliminated it for.
“I’m free,” he says.
Simple.
As if he didn’t just tell a department to handle their own operations and not call him again.
“So how fast can you change?”
I am speechless.
